1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a layout determination method for detecting a scene from a moving image file recorded in a recording medium, determining a representative image from the detected scene, and printing the determined representative image.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a PC and the like can record moving images taken by a digital video camera in a recording medium such as a memory card and a DVD. Printing of the content of the moving images recorded in a recording medium is widely performed to figure out the content of the moving images recorded in the recording medium. For example, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007-0127048 describes a method of printing the content of moving images on the surface (hereinafter referred to as “label”) of a CD or a DVD. According to the description, image data including information indicating the content of data is generated from the data recorded in the CD or the DVD, and the image data is printed on the label of the CD or the DVD. In this way, the user can easily figure out what kind of data is stored.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-054055 describes another method for figuring out the content of moving images. In the method, scenes in moving image data are detected, and representative images of the scenes are displayed or printed. According to the description, scenes are prioritized after the detection of the scenes from the moving images, representative scenes are extracted from scenes in higher priority, and representative images of the extracted representative scenes are displayed or printed. In this way, the time for display and printing can be reduced and the user can easily figure out the content of the moving images, because even if many scenes are detected from the moving images as unnecessary images are deleted.
Furthermore, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005-0183010 proposes a method for laying out according to the priority of the data when data is printed on a non-rectangular area such as a label. According to the description, types and forms of the data are analyzed, thereby allowing to automatically lay out on various areas.
However, in the conventional examples, information related to the reproducing time period or the file size of each scene is not visualized on the CD or the DVD recording the moving images. For example, in the technique described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007-0127048, scenes constituting the moving images are not detected, and only one representative image in the entire moving images is printed. Therefore, it is difficult to figure out a plurality of scenes constituting the moving images by looking at the printing result.
In the technique described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-054055, a plurality of scenes constituting the moving images can be figured out by looking at the printing result. However, it is difficult to intuitively understand the proportion of the recording time period of each scene.
In the technique described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005-0183010, it is difficult to intuitively understand the proportion of the recording time period of each scene just by looking at the printing result when the data is laid out on a non-rectangular area.